The Unfettered Pursuit of Happiness

March 09, 2012

Picturing Retirement: When Life Gives You Lemons . . .

Photo Friday The most prolific fruit tree in our garden is a Meyer Lemon. Aside from a twist of the peel for my martini, I'm not sure how to use them all up. Anyone have any good recipes, maybe using the actual inside of the lemon?

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How about squeezing and freezing some of the lemons in a few ice cube trays? Once they're frozen, pop the cubes into a ziplock bag and keep stored in freezer. You'll have months worth of fresh juice on hand to use for cooking, baking, salad dressing or whatever.

I could use them all up just mixing Amaretto sours. They're great with fresh squeezed lemon juice.

Lots of sauces call for a fair amount of lemon juice. The orange sauce for Asian-inspired orange chicken comes to mind. You can find lots of recipes for it just googling for a minute. But it is basically a matter of reducing lemon and orange juice with a bit of brown sugar, garlic, soy sauce, onions and adding corn starch as a thickener. Then you douse it over some chicken served over a bed of rice. Yum. Fresh lemon juice really gives life to sauces that the bottled stuff just can't seem to pull off.

You might want to check with your local food bank to see if they'll come and pick whatever fruit you can't use. It then gets distributed in food boxes and to shelters. Googling your city along with something like: food bank gleaners should help you find some resources.

Here in Tucson, I've got a 30-ft high lemon tree that overwhelms me with fruit! I pick what I need, call the gleaners and get a tax deductible receipt for several hundred pounds of fruit in return!

yes! Stolichnaya 100 proof. but sometimes i use garlic stuffed olives that way i stay in some of the food groups:) but all kidding aside do the blossoms on the lemon tree smell good? my hyacinths have bloomed early here in jersey and it's nice to sit on the porch and smell them, with what else? a martini:D i may throw caution to the wind and try hendricks gin i got nothing to lose, i'm retired.

Meyer Lemons make on of the best Lemon Curds there is. Here is a very easy version...
Ingredients:
6 egg yolks
1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of fresh lemon juice
1 cube of butter cut into pieces

Beat the egg yolks, add the cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of lemon juice.
Stir these ingredients in a saucepan and cook on medium heat until it thickens.
Remove from the stove, add the butter pieces and stir till melted.

This is GREAT on Scones, Muffins and a filler for short bread cookies.

If you make a double batch use only 1 and 1/2 sticks of butter.

I love this stuff and so does nearly everyone who asks me to make it all the time! I beg the lemons off my neighbor and share with her this jarred sunshine!